Santry

Santry is a bustling mixed class suburb on the Northern side of Dublin. Today it straddles the boundary of Dublin and Fingal. The character of the area has changed in the last 100 years. Much of the old village is gone and where there were once fields full of crops, and wild woodlands of all sorts there are now housing estates, an athletics stadium, a shopping complex, industrial parks and busy roads leading to Dublin Airport.

Where the Santry Demesne public park is situated was once a palatial old house and gardens built in the 1700s. This was once the largest house in North County Dublin and people travelled from far and wide to be received by the owners - the Barry Family. Many clues of the house still exist and the park is worth visitng to find the house foundations, front steps, tree-avenue and walled garden. A small bend in the Santry river (which is the boundary for the park today) was widened to create a small pond for the boating pleasure of Georgian Ladies and Gentlemen who resided at, and visited the house.

The ancient history of the area is just as interesting. Santry is an anglicisation of the Irish placename Shean Triabh (pronounced Shan-treev) which literally means "old tribe". Although nobody can be quite sure, the book of Leccan refers to a tribe called the Almanii who inhabited the area, who might have been the source of the name.

During the Viking invasions a number of peaceful Norse farmers move into the North Dublin area, which now proves to be excellent farmland. These Norsemen are famous for their agricultural prowess, crafts and fishing skills. They also bring new pass-times and strange Scandanavian phrases which are thought to survive to today further away from the city. The gregarious, direct, rogueish and outgoing character of the Norsemen may be something that endures with what Dublin people understand as a "Northsider".

After this time people begin to refer to the area from Santry and North to Swords, Lusk and the Naul as "Fingal", which translates as Fair-Haired Foreigner. The name remains only in the folk memory until a re-organisation of Local Government in the 1990s sets up Fingal County Council and County Fingal.

History

In the 12th century, The neighbourhood of Santry was plundered by Murcadh Ua Maeleachlain, King of Meath, in revenge for the death of his son at he hand of Mac Gilla Mocholmog, chief of Fingal, who sets his base in Santry.

In 1581 Santry is awarded to William Nugent who then looses it as a result of disloyalty to the English crown. The Barry family become The Lords of Santry where it will remain for several generations. King Charles II makes Sir James Barry then only a knight, Baron of Santry. (For services rendered). By this time the kingdom of Fingal is absorbed into the Elizabethan County of Dublin.

Santry was the scene of violence in the early months of the Irish Rebellion of 1641, when an English punitive expedition led by Sir Charles Coote massacred a group of local farm labourers, who were sleeping in the fields there. Coote had assumed they were rebels who were preparing to attack Dublin.

During the Williamite war in Ireland, in 1690, the Catholic King James stationed his Jacobite army just to the west of Santry, near Balcurris (now Ballymun) before setting out to oppose William of Orange at the battle of the Boyne.

In the Irish Rebellion of 1798 United Irishmen from all over Fingal marched south towards Dublin city but were met by Yeomanry (government miliita) from Santry village and massacred. The bloodshed is so bad that the area at the Northern gateway to Santry Demesne (Little Venice Restaurant) is known as Bloody Hollows for several years after.

This article is licenced under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Santry".